Tiny Tower, the latest game from the folks at Nimblebit, is the subject of today's review. As the games title suggests, you are in charge of building a tower.
From the start Tiny Tower pulls you in with a layer of charm that almost all the Nimblebit games have. The graphics are blocky, with a 8-bit game kind of feel. But this adds to Tiny Tower, rather than subtract from it.
The goal of Tiny Tower is to build a tower, bring in new bitzens to work and live in it, and complete some semi-simple missions. Each floor of your tower can either be an apartment level or a retail level. Each of the apartments can hold five bitzens, while the retail levels only have one kind of business.
Each of the bitzens that live in the tower have a number of stats that determine how good they are at certain job types. They also have a dream job that is a big part of the game.
Each service level can employ three bitzens, with the number of bitzens allowing an increase in the amount of stock that each location has. For example the Mapple store sells the Mypod with one employee, the Myphone with two, and the Mybook with three. If you have an employee that is working in their dream job, the amount of stock you can have increases. There is a fair amount of different service jobs from the aforementioned Mapple store to a movie theater to a wood shop.
As your tower grows, so do the costs of adding new levels. I'm sitting at 49 floors, with the cost to add a new one being 375k coins. That amount its too much though, considering that I'm raking in about 20ish coins a second. There are missions to do in the game as well, but do be honest I haven't attempted any of them yet.
The sound is minimal in Tiny Tower, but it's not the kind of game that requires it. There are little coin sounds as your total goes up, a bell that lets you know store is ready to be restocked, and a nice light music bed to go along with everything.
Tiny Tower does include some IAP, but considering the game is free I'm ok with it. You can buy bux from within the game that allow you to move levels, or move in a new bitzen without having to wait, or cash them out for the games currency. I ended up buying some bux just because I was enjoying the game so much and I wanted to kick Nimblebit a bit more money.
Overall this game is good to look at and a blast to play. The only issue I have with it is once your tower is going for a while. It gets a bit annoying to have to stock and restock every in the tower. But the annoyances are outweighed by the fun I had playing it.
Verdict
Graphics: Three stars
Sound: Three stars
Gameplay: Four stars
Amount of IAP: Some, but not very annoying
Angry Bird Leg rating: Moderate in the beginning, minor after things get going.
Overall: A solid game that is well worth the download.
Cost: Free
